


John and the Art of Moirallegiance

by MacaroniSwirls



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ENJOY BROS, Gen, Just missing around with an idea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:52:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacaroniSwirls/pseuds/MacaroniSwirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John accidentally fills the pale quadrant with a prissy sea dweller. Urban!Stuck AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which An Alliance is Formed

It wasn't that often that any serious friendships formed between trolls and humans. It wasn't often for minor ones to form, either.

Actually, the city was pretty segregated in terms of troll and human culture. That just kind of happens when you have two different species with two completely different ways of going about doing things living in the same area. Several of the trolls didn't want to associate too much with dirty lowbloods, and most of the humans were intimidated rubbing shoulders with people who easily had the potential to kill them in a few minutes flat. The most common relationships between trolls and humans were simply lowbloods who decided to go find someone lower than they are.

This was what made this little friendship so strange.

John had freaked out when he first realized he had to wait at a bus stop with no company except for a troll – his childhood had been filled with Dave's horror stories about how if he wasn't ironic enough, a troll would creep into his bed at night and kill him with their weird teeth and accent.

As a result, Eridan had just looked at this troll with a mix of curiosity and fear as it leaned against the wall. He - John assumed it was he, but it was a different species so you never know – fit most of the troll basics. Pointy horns and gray skin and yellow eyes and pointily sharp teeth – he was a bit surprised by the ear fins, though. He didn't know trolls had those.

Except John was more distracted by the skinny jeans, scarf, and his overall attempt to look scruffy poor. He was what Dave would've unironically called a hipster. As his bus pulled up, John was a bit shocked to see what was a...cape(?!) on the trolls back.

He was a bit more shocked when the troll turned around and addressed him before boarding the bus.

“Really, if you're that curious about me, you can actually bother to talk to me instead of just gawwking.”

And that was Eridan and John's first interaction.

The next day, John hesitantly took the offer with an awkward “So, what do you trolls do exactly?” and was surprised when they actually had a civil conversation discussing the differing cultures of their species.

It was the fifth conversation that got the whole chain of events started. John had let ship a crush on a friend, only for Eridan to badger him about whether he was flashing red or black or pale. At John's blank stare, Eridan began his spiel, and soon got to the area of moirails.

“Moirail's are basically...well, you humans would call them close friends. Someone you could rely on and lean on,” Eridan explained, flapping hand gestures around the entire time.

“Do you have one?”

John wasn't sure why he asked, but the idea that Eridan might not have a close friend was depressing and he wanted to just make sure that the troll's life was happy and dandy and filled with sunshine like John's life with his best friends was!

“Nah, I haven't had one in a while.”

“Oh.”

An awkward pause ensued. John decided that everyone should have at least one close friend.

“Well, you don't seem like that bad of a person, so I'll be your moirail if you want!” John said this in the derpy manner that he says everything. Like many humans, he had made the mistake of thinking moirail was synonymous with good friend, without realizing the deeper commitment behind it that is common with all troll romance.

“Hmm, wwell, you are a human,” Eridan considered, deep in thought over the social delimma of filling his quadrants with a messy fleshbag, before getting a sudden look of realization. “Actually, I think this wwill wwork out wwell. I'll take you ovver to my house this wweekend to teach you more about troll culture firsthand, because you need to do that if you wwant to become an evven halfwway decent moirail.”

And thus begins the moirailship.

\-------------

John had expected the trip to the troll area of time to be a one time thing. Instead, Eridan seemed to go out of his way to take him down there as frequently as possible, in order to ‘properly understand his culture’ or some such thing. Not that he was complaining, as their part of town was actually quite interesting; John frequently made off-handed comments like ‘Wow, you guys have a whole store dedicated to buckets!’ and ‘Wait, it’s perfectly normal for people to stab each other in the streets? …..Wait, it’s considered romantic!?”

The only thing that really bothered John was the looks that he got. They weren’t necessarily disgusted (though he did get several of those kind of looks), but most of them suggested the question of ‘oh, I wonder why one of you are down here.’

“Hey, Eridan, why does everyone keep looking at me like that…?” John cringed at the look Eridan gave him. It wasn’t a bad look, it just made him feel incredibly stupid, like the answer was incredibly obvious.

“John, howw often do you think humans come dowwn here? Of course you’re going to get looks.”

“But, don’t they know what we look like already, I don’t see why they have to sta-“

“Egbert, I get the exact same looks wwhen I go to areas surrounding your part of town, and I deal wwith it just fine.”

John wanted to point out that if some shady character decided to attack Eridan in the mostly human areas of the city, Eridan had the advantage of having teeth and the strength that seemed natural to trolls to defeat whatever human attacked. If someone attacked John here, he was pretty much screwed.

John would’ve pointed this out, but Eridan already exuded some weird mix of embarrassment and annoyance at the fact that John was spouting idiotic human emotions like worry everywhere.

“John, don’t be so glubbing wworried. As long as you’re wwith me dowwn here, you should be safe. It’s a moirail’s job to keep their partner from dying in some horribly idiotic wway.”

John was a bit bothered by the use of the word partner, but there was another issue pressing more heavily on his mind.

“And if you’re not here?”

“Wwell, you’re pretty much screwwed. You’d be dead wwithin a feww hours. Some of us still havven’t come to terms wwith us havving to co-operate wwith your lowwblooded humans.”

“…,” John wasn’t sure how to even begin to respond to that, and it took a grand total of two seconds before the silence between them grew awkward. Eridan, with all of his social graces, expertly broke it.

“So…yeah. Don’t travvel here wwithout me.”

“I, uh, kind of got that.”

\-----------------

It was after two weeks that John realized there was a basic cultural misunderstanding going on.

It wasn’t Eridan that broke it to him, though he was a contributing factor. Really, the day began at the bus stop like any other. Well, today Eridan had bought his lusus with him because apparently it had broken a fin or something and it needed to be taken to the doctor or whatever to be fixed.

The giant seahorse still intimidated John a bit, especially when he first noticed that it appeared to be simply hovering a few feet above the ground; he had asked Eridan about this only to get a reply of ‘It’s a skyhorse, idiot.’

He and Eridan had been discussing something or other – he thinks they’d been discussing troll and human babies or something. The only thing that he remembers from the conversation is that troll life cycles sure are weird!

Partway through the conversation, John felt a hand touch his shoulder and he turned around and oh god how did Dave and Rose sneak up on him without him noticing.

“So John, this is the douchebag you’ve been hanging out with the past couple of days,” Dave peered up over John’s shoulder. “Looks like you’ve been going hipster exotic?”

Dave looked on with a bit of fascination on his face. It was hard to tell when Dave was showing emotion, because he was simply so chill all the time, but

John had learned to catch the overly subtle eyebrow raises that indicated emotion.

“Yeah, guys, this is Eridan!” Derpy grins always had a home on John’s face.

“My mom would be satisfied. Her company has been facing way too much controversy ever since it joined one of the troll corporations. She would consider this friendship a good step in integration.” Rose’s smile was subtle, but in a different way. It was a smile that showed that a lot more was going on in her mind than one first thought.

Eridan’s eyes were narrowed in observation and after a few moments he made his reply.

“Hello, I am Eridan Ampora.”

John mentally facepalmed. As much as Eridan was growing on him, it still bothered him how pompous he had to act sometimes.

“I trust that you have had fun teaching John about troll culture?” Rose replied. Dave was just sort of watching, which isn’t uncommon. Most humans had little exposure around trolls – Rose had an advantage in this area due to her mom’s career choice.

“I wwouldn’t be hanging wwith him if wwe wweren’t, wwe’ve became the palest of pals.”

The bus came, Eridan and his lusus got on, and this made John slightly glad, since it kept him from noticing John’s spittake.

It was only when they were walking home later and Dave had left that Rose bought up the earlier conversation.

“John, what did he mean by the palest of pals?”

“Oh, we’re moirails! We were talking and he told me he didn’t have one, and I thought everyone deserved to have a good friend!”

A bystander would’ve laughed at the sheer contrast of their facial expressions. John was radiating a high-class brand of the ‘now everyone can be happy’ smile while Rose had put on some ‘oh god John, you have no idea what is going on.’

“I don’t think you exactly understand what Moirails are.”

“Well, aren’t they just friends?”

“John, my mom has had to know this stuff from her job, so the knowledge has passed on to me, and well….John, moirallegiance is a romantic relationship. It goes beyond mere friendship.”

This was the moment when John’s face twisted into shock and he began to defend his heterosexuality. Except he got interrupted first.

“No, no, no. It’s not exactly like that kind of romance down. Troll romance is a bit difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best. Moirailegiance is basically a kind of symbiosis between an especially violent troll and a calmer one. The former protects the later, while the other keeps the other from getting too violent and killing people. I’d say you’re the calm one in this relationship.”

“Oh,” John kind of grasped for some words but he didn’t know exactly what to say. “Well, this is awkward. …It stills seems like a regular friendship, though, and it makes him happy, and Eridan doesn’t seem like the violent type.”

“John, it’s times like these that I wish you’d bother to get more informed about society.”   
One of those frustrated sighs came – the kind that told John that he was about to get an in-depth explanation of why what he did was idiotic.

“In trolls, blood color often determines social ranking. Along with this, trolls tend to get increasingly violent as their blood color gets more socially acclaimed. The highest blood colors are considered royalty. ”

“Rose, why do I think I’m not going to like what you say next.”

“Because I was about to say Eridan is pretty much a prince.”

“Oh.”

“You should break up with him, considering that you don’t reciprocate this relationship, but do it carefully. Or you might get your head ripped off.”

John wasn’t sure whether to thank her for the bluntness or cry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proving I can update stuff other than Eri Potter.

John wasn’t sure how to break up with Eridan.

Well, that sentence was a bit inaccurate view of his thought process. John wasn’t trying to think of it as breaking up, because breaking up implied romance and John was not a homosexual. Instead, he preferred to think of it as ‘cutting ties but not all ties, just the unwanted overly-intimate ones.’

He had honestly planned on being a huge wuss and pesterchumminging that about it. Then he realized that that was rude and there was also the simple fact that he didn’t even know what Eridan’s chumHandle was. For that matter, he didn’t know if trolls even used Pesterchum.

So here he was, walking down the same road to the bus stop, hoping that he wouldn’t get lynched by an angry troll who just lost their quadrant. At least, that was the plan. Then the plan got interrupted when John got distracted by the sound of wheels rolling behind him.

No, not car wheels, you idiot, wheelchair wheels.

 

“Uh, hELLO, aRE YOU THE, eR, jOHN HUMAN?” John had never known that trolls could be crippled. It just wasn’t associated with the concept of the species. Yet here one was, his legs hanging limp in the wheelchair and a derpy smile between his oversized horns.

“Oh, ah, yes, but you can just call me John,” John was making a huge effort to not stare at the deformed legs. That was impolite in human culture, and he was sure it would get him killed in troll culture. He just focused his eyes on the oversized horns.

“oKAY, jOHN. yOU, aRE HIS MOIRAIL, eRIDAN, i MEAN,,” The troll just kind of looked down, and John couldn’t help but pity it. It was suffering from a severe lack of confidence.

“…Yes.” John was wondering where this going.

“cAN YOU, uH, gET HIM TO HELP ME, iF THAT’S OKAY WITH YOU?” Tavros pushed his wheelchair forward, closing the few meters between them. “i WOULD ASK MYSELF, bUT, uH, i DON’T THINK HE WOULD SAY YES, mAYBE, sINCE i HAVE A LOW BLOOD COLOR, i MEAN.”

If it was any other troll, John would’ve awkwardly tried to get away and avoid any troll drama. This troll was just so pathetic and pitiful, though, with his wheelchair and his downcast lack and his absolute lack of charisma, that John would’ve felt too guilty just walking away.

“What is it?”

“i HAVE A, UH, REALLY CLOSE FRIEND, WHO IS PRETTY HIGH ON THE HEMOSPECTRUM, AND HE HAS GONE A BIT CRAZY, AND, UH,” Tavros paused, calling on Rufio to give him enough confidence to make the request. “aND, uH, eRIDAN IS HIGHER, aND MIGHT bE ABLE TO GIVE HIM THE SOPOR, i THINK, aND CALM HIM DOWN.”

“You mean you want him to…” John had to take a few moments to translate the pathway of interjections. “Fight an insane troll that he….might be able to calm down?”

“pLEASE, hE IS, uH, tHE ONLY CLOSE FRIEND I HAVE WHO DIDN’T, uH,” Tavros looked down at his legs. “cRIPPLE ME.”

John really wanted to say no, he really did, but he couldn’t just leave this kid with no close friends but the one who crippled him. The thought of it just didn’t quite sit well with it.

“Fine, but I think I would need to know your name first?”

“oH, i AM TAVROS, aND MY FRIENDS NAME IS, gAMZEE,” Tavros replied, a small smile on his face. John began to walk away, though he realized that after standing around and having this conversation, his bus was probably going to have left and he wouldn’t be able to talk to Erida-

Oh, crap. Maybe he could tell Tavros no, and explain that he and Eridan were going to stop being moirails soon, and that maybe he could find somebody else-

“THANK YOU, VERY MUCH, I THINK, THAT, MAYBE, YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON THAT COULD’VE HELPED ME WITH THIS, MOSTLY.”

John looked back at the troll that was still wheeling behind him, and couldn’t help but mentally punch himself out of frustration.

“i THINK IT IS REALLY, gREAT, tHAT YOU ARE, uH, bEING MOIRAILS WITH eRIDAN,” Tavros grinned, his eyebrows raised in an expression John assumed was happiness. “eRIDAN IS, vERY, uH, vIOLENT SOMETIMES, aND I THINK YOU ARE VERY BRAVE, mAYBE, aND ALSO CONFIDENT, tO BE HIS MOIRAIL.”

Tavros was just making friendly small talk, but John was very close to telling him to just shut up.

\-------

That night, John found out that trolls did indeed have instant messaging. At first John thought it the gray window was spam, but lo and behold, it was Trollian.

-caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling ectoBiologist [EB]-

CA: hey john  
CA: are you there john, answwer me  
EB: sorry, but who are you?  
CA: coddamnit, this is Eridan, didn’t I give you my trollian?  
EB: …..no  
CA: wwell that’s not important right now  
CA: wwhat I need to talk to you about is wwhether or not you told Tavv that I wwould help him  
EB: yes, but he didn’t seem like he was that bad of a troll! it shouldn’t be too hard to calm down his friend!  
CA: idiot, don’t you knoww that Gamzee is a subjugglator!?  
EB: a what?  
CA: ah, just nevvermind. I’m stuck doing this if you’vve actually agreed. I can’t break my wword if you gavve it, but coddamnit, remember to ask me next time.  
CA: you don’t see me givving other people permission to use you howwevver they please

-caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB]-

\--------

John was good at keeping track of time. He had become a master of counting down to the latest Nicholas Cage movie, and thus he was a master of waiting. He had been waiting for a total of three days.

On the first day, he assumed that Eridan was likely just pissed and/or was still trying to fulfill the task of finding that cripple’s friends. He wasn’t worried. These were logical conclusions.

On the second day, he provided himself with the same excuses as the day before, but they were starting to seem strained and fake. He let himself nourish the notion that maybe Eridan had decided to ignore him and stop being his moirail, but at the same time he had a vague sense of worry and panic. Really, who knows if Eridan hadn’t just opped out and was preparing to cut his neck off in some dumb revenge act? He’d seen enough horror movies about trolls to not doubt it.

On the third day, he found an entirely new reason to worry.

He was at a coffee shop with Dave –he had wanted to be ‘ironically hipster’ or something like that. Dave had been sipping coffee and explaining that John should ‘just be glad to have that fishface douchebag off his back’ when the glass door of the shop cracked open.

There would’ve been a tense pause after this, except it was broken with an outburst of “D----Fiddlesticks.”

John knew it was a troll when he heard that. Trolls had strange and idiotic speech impediments, and only a troll had the capability to put an implied arrow in front of his speech. John tried to ignore it, hoping that it was some troll casually walking in.

The next sound was the entire door breaking down and a frustrated grunt coming from the earlier troll.

John now let out his own frustrated grunt, because, of course, the troll was going straight towards him. It wasn’t even a normal troll coming towards him, this one was sweaty and overly muscular and had half a horn and several teeth missing.

When it came home and leaned on their table, John didn’t miss the fact that the table was now permanently tilted towards the troll.

“D---- John, I wish to speak to you about your incapibilities of Eridan’s marerail, I mean moirail,” The trolls seemed more intimidating up close, as the sheer mass of it seemed to violate his personal space. “D--- You are honored to be a lowb100d granted with such romantic inclinations to a highb100d and thus I expect you to follow your duties as such.”

“Uh….,” John was confused. John was not good at coming up with replied.

“D---- If your moirail gets a limb ripped off fulfilling a task that you required him to do, you should at least give him your company while he is getting his prosthetics secured.”

John made a dumbfounded face. The troll made a scowl and gruffly lifted John over his shoulder.

“D--- Your moirail has been under surgery in my hive for the past two days and under anesthetic, and you have not once taken the opportunity to offer him moirailiegance. Such things are not taken lightly, and I will make sure you support him at some point, even through force.”

There were two conflicting emotions in John right now. There was the emotion that was freaking out because oh my god there was this giant muscular troll most likely capable of crushing his spine carrying him. This is a perfectly normal reaction to Equius. Right now, John was a bit too distracted by the other emotion to have the ‘oh my god why is he sweating so much’ reaction factor in.

The other emotions was the one that was going ‘wait, what, Eridan’s been in surgery for how many days?’ This is also a perfectly normal reaction. Unlike the other one, it elicited less panic and just happened to leave him slightly stunned. And by slightly stunned, we mean horribly stunned.

Dave had at some point tried to grab John away from the hulking troll, but Equius swatted him off like a fly. John made a mental note to thank Dave later. If the situation had been reversed, John would most likely have been standing there in horror.

Well, if the situation had been reversed, Dave would’ve been too cool and ironic to get into said situation to begin with.

John noticed that a lot of the wonderment of exploring the troll part of town was lost when you’re being dragged there and when all the other trolls are watching you and whispering things like ‘Oh, is he getting culled?’ Any fascination he would’ve gotten from looking down here was lost when instead of going down to a seashore house..er…hive, he ended up going to some rusty, robotic looking one instead.

Three floors down into said hive, John was feeling wary from all the broken robot parts scattered around and the …unique paintings hung up everywhere. One more floor down and he was starting to get into hysterics because it was starting to seem extremely likely that he was going to get culled.

“D--> Calm down, I am simply escorting you to your moirail. I would suggest you cease your struggling.”

Eventually, they arrived at the destination. John wasn’t sure how to react when he saw Eridan on what would be best described as a homemade surgical bed. Maybe it was the glazed over look in his eyes that left John so unnerved, but Equius had been quick to reassure him that that was simply a result of anesthetic.

What stuck out most to John was the useless stump where Eridans right arm had been. There was something akin to an arm there now, but it was mostly a skeleton of wires and metal plating. The seatroll was so unnervingly limp and John was starting to panic that he was dying and-

“D--> I told you. It’s simply anesthetic.”

“…oh.”

“D--> Are you aware of the nature of how he obtained this injury?”

John simply shook his head no.

“D--> Apparently his moirail had asked him to subdue an e%tremely highb100ded troll. “

“….”

“D--> It didn’t go well.”

“….”

“D--> And from what I see, you have absolutely no clue how a proper moirailiegence even works.”

This was true to the umpteenth degree. However, one can’t just cut out a quadrant after you indirectly get someone’s arm ripped   
off.

Thus, another delay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this, my bros.


End file.
